Al Boum Photo defends Cheltenham Gold Cup crown for Mullins and Townend

Al Boum Photo became just the third horse in half a century to successfully defend the Magners Cheltenham Gold Cup crown on Friday.

Paul Townend guided the 100-30 favourite to a neck defeat of Santini with Lostintranslation in third. Rachael Blackmore finished fourth on the 20-1 outsider Monalee.

Back-to-back victories elevates Al Boum Photo alongside Best Mate and L’Escargot, the only other horses to manage the feat in the last 50 years.

He proved the centrepiece of a superb 2,196-1 four-timer for Willie Mullins who mopped up the first four races on the final day.

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An unprecedented Irish clean sweep of every race on Friday looked on the cards only for the 25-1 shot Indefatigable to spoil the perfect outcome in the finale.

Mullins’s final-day bonanza saw him edge out his rival Gordon Elliott’s for the week’s top trainer prize.

Both had seven winners and seven runner-up placings. But remarkably Mullins edged it on six third placings to four.

Having finished runner-up in the Gold Cup six times prior to last year, Mullins might have been forgiven for suspecting an element of ‘like buses’ to Al Boum Photo’s latest ‘Blue Riband’ success.

Townend once again did the steering but this time also rubber-stamped his status as successor to Ruby Walsh in jump racing’s top job.

Boosted with the confidence of earlier Grade One wins on Burning Victory in the Triumph Hurdle and Monkfish in the Albert Bartlett, the 29-year-old jockey delivered a masterful Gold Cup ride.

Run at a comparatively sedate pace, Townend manoeuvred Al Boum Photo to the forefront of the field fully five fences out.

With the field stacked behind him on the turn-in Al Boum Photo was briefly headed by Lostintranslation but rallied bravely to hold off Santini’s late lunge.

“I thought I’d never feel anything like the feeling I had here last year – this is even better,” the jockey said. “It’s all about this. It’s all about this lad. It’s unreal.”

The context of Townend replacing Walsh, the festival’s most successful ever jockey and who retired last year, wasn’t lost on Mullins.

“It’s very difficult to take over from someone like Ruby Walsh and Paul’s come and stamped his authority on this season in Ireland and his riding for our yard. I’m really delighted for him,” he said.

Townend wound up taking the week’s leading rider award – presented to him by Walsh – with five winners.

That was the same tally as Barry Geraghty, who rode Mullins’s County Hurdle winner Saint Roi, but lost out on the prize on placed efforts.

At the end of a fraught four days overshadowed by the coronavirus pandemic, and Cheltenham’s authorities criticised for racing in front of the public, such sporting outcomes helped divert, however temporarily, from wider anxieties.

Mullins’s own stress wasn’t helped by having to wait until the final race on Wednesday to notch a first winner of the week.

His double on Thursday was trumped by Elliott’s hat-trick but the final day turned into a Mullins benefit and re-established him as the festival’s most successful ever trainer on 72 winners.

The Gold Cup, however, carries a status all of its own.

Not even Best Mate, who won three between 2002 and 2004, has been as lightly campaigned as Al Boum Photo, who once again landed the Gold Cup off the back of a single prep race at Tramore on New Year’s Day.

“We decided not to break the winning formula and just take in the same preparation as he did last year. Don’t break a winning formula when it works and it’s paid off thankfully.

“I thought this Gold Cup wasn’t anything like last year’s. I was just thinking if he had a clear round and a bit of luck then it was all to play for.

“I was happy throughout and Paul was brave on him at the last. Paul’s plan came together. It’s Paul’s day. I’m delighted for him as well as Marie and Joe Donnelly [owners],” Mullins said.

Bookmaker reaction was to make Al Boum Photo a 5-1 shot to replicate Best Mate’s hat-trick in 2021, a feat accomplished by other legendary names in the past, Arkle and Cottage Rake.

After the Gold Cup, Mullins’s Billaway started 11-4 favourite for the Foxhunters but failed to reel in the shock 66-1 winner It Came To Pass.

The winner was ridden by Maxine O’Sullivan whose father Eugene also trained the winner of the race 29 years previously, Lovely Citizen.

“It’s really special for our family. My uncle [William] won it in 1991, my dad trained it and my granddad owned and bred it. My granddad died in the last couple of years but he’d be so proud. This is our Gold Cup,” said the jockey.

CHELTENHAM RESULTS
1.30
1 Burning Victory (P Townend) 12-1
2 Aspire Tower (R Blackmore) 5-1
3 Allmankind (H Skelton) 7-2
13 ran

1 Chosen Mate (D Russell) 7-2 Fav
2 Eclair De Beaufeu (S O'Keeffe) 13-2
3 Us And Them (JJ Slevin) 10-1
4 Greaneteen (H Cobden) 5-1
18 ran Non Runners: 12,18

5.30
1 Indefatigable (R Dingle) 25-1
2 Pileon (B Jones) 9-1
3 Great White Shark (DJ McInerney) 40-1
4 Happygolucky (S Sheppard) 25-1
23 ran Non Runners: 1, 6